I work in the I.T. department of a town government, where our small team is led by a director who is a fervent conspiracy theorist. In casual conversations, the director frequently discusses bizarre ideas in a hushed, serious manner, as if revealing hidden truths: lizard people infiltrating the federal government, the Rothschilds as vampiric blood drinkers and J.F.K. Jr. secretly controlling Trump with plans for a 2024 comeback.
This individual is responsible for managing and securing the municipal data of a very affluent town. The potential risks are alarming. It is not outside the realm of possibility that this alternate reality could compromise the director’s decision-making, potentially jeopardizing the security of our town’s sensitive information. When I’ve raised my concerns with both the mayor and the head of H.R., they’ve swiftly dismissed the issue and redirected the conversation.
I am left in a difficult position, fearing not only for the security of our town’s data but also for my own job stability under a manager detached from reality. Is it ethical for someone in such a crucial role to openly espouse these beliefs at work? — Name Withheld
From the Ethicist:
The problem with your boss, as you’ve laid out the situation, is not so much that this person expresses their beliefs as that they have them. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to worry, as you do, that someone so disconnected from reality might release information in an attempt to avert an imaginary conspiracy. And someone convinced that the mayor, say, was in on the conspiracy wouldn’t be subject to the usual mechanisms of restraint.
Yet I’m struck that you’ve shared your worries with people in positions of responsibility and they clearly have a very different sense of the situation. Maybe they know your boss and have already concluded that their outlandish beliefs are, so to speak, recreational, and don’t affect their professionalism. The philosopher Neil Van Leeuwen has suggested that religious beliefs, for many who hold them, are best regarded as what he calls ‘‘credences’’: they’re ultimately closer to the realm of imaginative play than to the beliefs we have about our ground reality. (Those are factual beliefs like: Today is Sunday; if I drop this glass it will break; there are seats available in the left pew.) Credences, which tend to support a social identity, generally aren’t vulnerable to evidence. We revise our factual beliefs all the time (Oh, that restaurant is open on Sundays), but how do you refute a dietary taboo or a distaste for an out-group? And then, Van Leeuwen notices, we typically protect our credences from too much reality. We pray for a friend to get better — but we also take her to the hospital.
Plenty of technicians and office workers who entertain far-fetched conspiracy theories would seem to function perfectly well in their jobs. It’s as if they keep their credences compartmentalized from the real world of their everyday responsibilities. For all that, I do think you’ve got a problem. Start with the fact that — to judge by the particular details you mention — your boss seems to be an acolyte of David Icke, a man known for popularizing the ‘‘lizard people’’ theory of history, in which blood-drinking Rothschilds figure significantly and the ‘‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion,’’ an antisemitic hoax from the turn of the last century, is respected as a factual document. Your boss’s views aren’t just outlandish; they’re hateful too. Here, this person’s habit of talking up these beliefs is highly relevant: It raises a workplace issue.
It also raises a judgment issue. Maybe their appetite for this stuff will have no effect on their professionalism, but why take the risk? People who harbor suspicions about vast conspiracies are, as we’ve learned, prone to being manipulated. The World Economic Forum’s Global Risk report for 2022 reported that 95 percent of cybersecurity failings were traceable to human error. People appear to be the weakest link in cybersecurity, and so a secure system depends on keeping track not just of hardware and software but of the people who interact with them as well. Given that you’ve tried getting senior management to do something about this, you’re entitled to act as a whistle-blower here and get the word out. I hope that you do.
Readers Respond
The previous question was from a reader who was concerned about his partner’s exploitation of a retail store’s return policy. He wrote: “My partner loves a large outfitting company that has a very generous return policy. The store will accept nearly any return within a year of purchase. My partner has been buying fairly expensive items from the store, using them while we travel and then returning them, even though they have accrued a good amount of wear and tear. Note that she would probably keep the items if they were exactly what she wanted, but there is almost always some imperfection: For example, she returned the backpack she used daily for international travel after nine months because it was slightly bigger than ideal. She returned the shoes that she wore almost daily for several months because they were not quite as comfortable as she desired. … I certainly agree with returning an item that is truly not up to your standards as soon as possible, but using an item extensively and then returning it for some minor imperfection doesn’t sit quite right. … If the store’s calculations were that this policy ultimately cost more than it was worth, of course they would cancel it. I can see both sides of this argument, and I’m truly unclear on what the most ethical approach is.”
In his response, the Ethicist noted: “You’ve thoughtfully given your partner’s side of the argument as well as yours. She isn’t engaged in deceit or fraud; she’s in compliance with the retailer’s return policy. That policy presumably helps the retailer retain a loyal clientele, while costing an amount that it can probably predict with some precision. It’s also true that if lots of people acted as she does, the policy would change. And so an interesting question is why more of them don’t follow her example. Perhaps most customers believe, as you seem to, that what she’s doing is an abuse of the system, because it’s predicated on the moral restraint of others. … We should do our fair share to maintain practices that serve us well, and following her example risks bringing us past the point of no returns.” (Reread the full question and answer here.)
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The woman who returned items months after purchase, despite getting significant use out of them, is a thief. She gamed the system. — Robert
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I agree with the Ethicist’s comments. Another consideration is that when you return something, it could go into the trash. This practice adds to the garbage we are producing in our world. I wish businesses would clarify what they do with returned items. When I return something because it was not a good fit or of the quality I expected, I always wonder, Where will this item end up? If it’s perfectly good, I hope it will be resold and not thrown out. The letter writer’s partner should consider the environmental impact of her returns. — Joy
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I agree with the Ethicist’s response here, but as an outdoor professional, I would add that REI (the probable retailer here), does in fact incorporate this very common practice into its business through its resale program. Where once the practice was unusual enough that the company held periodic “garage sales” of returned items, it has recently opened permanent resale stores that exist because of this return policy. — Jake
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Interestingly enough, the letter writer’s partner has probably already been marked a “serial returner.” Similar to credit scoring, some retailers track shopper behavior and go as far as banning them for habitually returning merchandise. So in the end, chances are that the generous policy the partner and other shoppers love will stay intact but the partner will be shown the door. As Taylor Swift said, “The trash takes itself out.” — Liz
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This issue calls to mind Kant’s categorical imperative, or the idea that you should act according to the maxim that you would wish all other rational people to follow, as if it were a universal law. And I suppose this touches on a wider issue, one intrinsically connected to ethics, which is how to be a good citizen. — Akin
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